Defintion Essay

The Sweetness of Joy
By Qi Pan
“True inner joy is self-created.
It does not depend on outer circumstances.
A river is flowing in and through you carrying the message of joy.
This divine joy is the sole purpose of life.” –Sri Chimnoy
Joy. According to The Cambridge Dictionary, Joy is ‘great happiness’. What a broad definition. To every single organism on earth, joy is something unique: something that no-one can copy. The feeling is so hard to grasp in your hands. Just when you think that you have joy fixed inside of you, it slips away, quieter than a whisper. It is one of the most valued things on earth, something that we cherish like our own child. Without joy, our lives would be black and white, plain and colorless. With joy comes freshness, color, a rush of blood to the cheeks, and a smile stretches across your face uncontrollably. But, like nearly everything else in life, it comes, and goes, like the sun that rises in at dawn, and sets at dusk. While the sunshine stays, it brings warmth and pleasure. When it goes, it is yearned for. But nonetheless, the faint image of dazzling light resides in our hearts, never fading.
One type of joy is contagious joy, AA Milne displays throughout his classical book Winnie the Pooh. If Piglet feels down, Pooh’s interesting theories and captivating adventures always bring light to Piglet’s emotions. It is like a disease, except it is as innocent as a fly. For example, if your friend tells you about passing a test, you feel happy for her, even though you may have failed. Joy spreads from one person’s smile to another, like a charity donating food to everyone, no matter what race or class they are part of.
Another type of joy is simple gayness. Little things, like feeling the wind brush past your face, or partying with your friends, mean the world to us. The feeling of joy is unique for everyone, just like the sun shines on both Japan and Chile, but never feels the same. It can be caused by culture, weather, marriage, friends, family, school, and many other normal people, places, or situations. Random bits and pieces such as a flourishing tulip or tranquilizing music shape our beliefs and make us who we are.
Joy can also lead to death and destruction. It can come from awful things such as drugs. But drugs are fake. They are a meager excuse for escaping from the prison cell of depression. Drugs manipulate your mind, change your personality. They make you someone you are not. However, joy is natural. Joy comes when you deserve it, when your brain wants to give you a real pat on the back. Nevertheless, people are different, and joy can lead to insanity. Joy is not perfect. It stays, and then goes, sometimes leaving a lifelong scar on those innocent, and causing terrible situations to occur due to the ecstasy of a madman. For instance, a terrorist can find a new beginning, a light at the end of his long tunnel of despair, through death. Suicide is a doorway to freedom for depressed, numb men who cannot feel the sweetness of real joy, men who can never understand how a smile could change the route of a person’s life. Joy is not concrete, and it does not want to be defined. It wants to stay abstract and yearned for, so that greed does not take over. You can never capture joy in a glass. It will always drift away, and come back when you deserve it.
A topic that is not associated with joy is money. “Money can’t buy you happiness” is a famous quote, and it is perfectly true. So what if you have all the money in the world? You can never buy real friends that are glued to your heart. The poorest man can have a smile as big as the world that emits light like a candle. Celebrities look like stars among the blinding paparazzi, but they never will feel the true warmth of joy unless they have time to experience the life of a truly loving person.
Joy is like a little butterfly that flitters from one flower to another, spreading its beauty, but leaving others behind. It is temporary, lasting usually only the time of a mayfly, but, when it is there, it creates laughter and happiness, a ray of sunshine that lasts forever, eternally dwelling in our hearts.